Sicilian Personal Chef Recipe Ideas by Ruth Paget
As part of my summer reading project to learn more about Italian culture, I read the Sicily Cookbook: Authentic Recipes from a Mediterranean Island by Cettina Vicenzino (available on Amazon Kindle) and found several recipes that personal chefs could easily learn and add to their repertoire of dishes to offer existing and potential clients.
These dishes include:
*Sicilian pork sausages baked with potatoes – this dish is traditionally made with sausages that have been flavored with licorice-tasting fennel. These sausages are mixed with onions, salt and pepper, cherry tomato halves, potato chunks, sage leaves, and rosemary sprigs for baking.
*raw zucchini salad – this dish is made with very thin slices of zucchini, sea salt, lemon juice, mint leaves, and extra-virgin olive oil. This mix is then chilled as a refreshing side dish.
*Catanian tomato salad – this dish is made with cherry tomato halves, red onion rings, sea salt, and grated ricotta salata cheese or pecorino cheese made from sheep’s milk.
*ricotta dumplings in orange and tomato sauce – the dumpling dough is made with fresh breadcrumbs, drained ricotta cheese, grated Parmesan cheese, egg, parsley, zest from an organic orange, nutmeg, and pepper.
These dumplings are boiled and dressed in a sauce made with olive oil, garlic, tomato paste, chopped tomatoes, zest of an organic orange, and basil leaves with raisins mixed in.
Vicenzino notes that there are three types of cuisine in Sicily:
*cibo di strada (street food especially in Palermo on Sicily’s western side)
*cucina povera (food of the poor)
*cucina dei Monsù (a fusion cuisine of the island’s aristocrats that is a blend of French food and the food of the Two Sicilies – the cuisine of southern Italy including Naples and the island of Sicily)
Vicenzino also provides an informative section about orchard management for almond growing. This knowledge is important to know for choosing high quality ingredients.
For people who would like to work as personal chefs, The Sicily Cookbook: Authentic Recipes from a Mediterranean Island by Cettina Vicenzino offers a variety of Mediterranean Diet dishes that can be made with ingredients that most American markets supply.
Happy Cooking!
By Ruth Paget
-author Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Marrying France, and Europe’s Lessons written during overseas duty in Germany + 5 other Kindle books
-developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games + 8 Classical Western Civilization War Games
-developer of food and beverage knowledge games
-creator of online exhibits about San Miguel Arcangel Mission, French baguette making, and the Carmel Valley History Center
-creator of French travel and culture games
-writer of 1800+ Central Coast California lifestyle blogs
-family genealogist
-developer of 9 music theory games
